Schools without hygiene, students without quality education

Educational institutions remain without lavatories as students suffer through lax standards

LAHORE: As many as 34 districts in the province are without sufficient number of toilets for children at government schools, revealed a report on government schools’ rankings of districts and divisions for the second quarter of 2017-18.

The ranking is part of the Chief Minister’s School Reforms Roadmap which collects wide-ranging indicators to measure the performance of public schools in all 36 districts of the province.

The current ranking is of the second quarter of 2017-18 for the months of October, November and December.

The ranking uses literacy and numeracy indicators based on the percentage of results of tests of English, math, and Urdu. It also uses students and teachers attendance, student retention, infrastructure and facilities monitoring by administrative staff. All the districts and divisions of the province are ranked on the basis of all the indicators.

According to the ranking, none of the districts achieved the targets for sufficiency of toilets for all the three months, however only two districts – Okara and Bhakkar achieved the targets for two months and Attock for one month in the quarter. The rest of the 33 districts failed to achieve the set targets for any month.

A slightly better situation was found for hygiene of schools, where 12 districts achieved the set target – 80%.

Whereas, seven districts achieved the targets for 2 two months and six districts were able to achieve the targets for a single month during the quarter. A total of 11 districts altogether failed to achieve the targets for the whole quarter.

Quality Assessment

According to this quarter’s assessment, the schools fared better than the previous quarter as two districts, Okara and Bahawalpur, achieved the targets for English assessment.

Whereas, a total of 16 districts were able to achieve the targets in two months in the quarter. Similarly, 12 districts were able to achieve the 80% target for a single month in the quarter.

A total of six districts, Rahim Yar Khan, Sialkot, Khushab, Narowal, Gujranwala and Rajanpur failed to achieve the target and ranked respectively in the English test.

For the Urdu assessment, five districts achieved the targets for two months in the quarter, while the rest of 31 districts passed the assessment for all three months in the quarter.

Okara, Bahawalpur, Bhakkar, Nankana Sahib and Pakpattan topped the Urdu assessment in the quarter respectively.

In the math assessment, a total of 14 districts achieved the target for two months in the quarter. A total of 22 districts achieved the targets for the whole quarter.

District Ranking

In the overall ranking, Okara topped among all the 36 districts of the Punjab. Bhakkar, Jhelum, Hafizabad and Attock grabbed the subsequent four positions. However, only Okara and Bhakkar were able to achieve 13 or more out of the total 14 indicators. A total of 23 districts were able to achieve 11 or more indicators, while 10 districts achieved nine or more targets. Only the Dera Ghazi Khan district achieved the targets of less than nine indicators. The bottom five districts in the ranking were Kasur, Rahim Yar Khan, Narowal, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan respectively.

Division Ranking

For the division ranking, Sahiwal topped, while Rawalpindi was given the second spot, Lahore third, Faisalabad got the fourth position, Sargodha was fifth, Multan grabbed sixth place, Gujranwala seventh, Bahawalpur eighth and Dera Ghazi Khan remained at the last spot.

No division of the province was able to achieve the given targets in 13 indicators, while seven of the top divisions were able to achieve targets in 11 and 12 indicators. Only Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan divisions were able to achieve nine or more indicators. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2018.